Slow Dancing in a Burning Room
by kfizzlewizzle92
Summary: She came to tell him that she was going to NYU. He didn't handle it well. Now they're going down. And they both know that it's true.


_**It's not a silly little moment,**_

_**It's not the storm before the calm.**_

_**This is the deep and dying breath of**_

_**This love that we've been working on.**_

I can't remember a time before us. Never have we been just Ross and just Laura. Ever since that first day we were asked to read together it's been _Ross and Laura_. Collectively. Even way back when I was lanky and my voice was three octaves higher. And she was awkward, with her face rounded out by the baby fat that she'd yet to fully lose. I remember thinking even then that she was so beautiful.

Always so fucking beautiful.

The day our relationship had taken a sharp turn past friendship and into so much more was easily one of the best days of my life. It wasn't planned. It wasn't talked about. It was just a kiss.

Yet so much more than just a kiss.

And over the past two years we've been building a foundation on that kiss. A foundation that was supposed to be able to weather any storm, no matter how tumultuous it may be.

So as she stood there telling me that she was leaving for New York in a month, I wondered what the hell kind of tempest that was because I wasn't sure of how we were supposed to get through it.

I wasn't even sure that we could.

And I told her that.

And she unleashed the kind of storm that I thought maybe I _could _handle.

She began yelling at me. About how important this was to her. I thought _I _was important to her, I said. She was silent for a moment.

Then she started reminding me of my schedule and the constraints it put on our relationship. I was always touring, or filming on location. It'd been hard on her. Hard on _us. _She was yelling again.

Still taking my breath away with her beauty.

_**Can't seem to hold you like I want to**_

_**So I can feel you in my arms.**_

_**Nobody's gonna come and save you,**_

_**We pulled too many false alarms.**_

I didn't want to fight anymore. Her voice wasn't fit for yelling. It was fit for singing beautiful music and calling the children we would one day have in for dinner.

I just wanted to make sure that she stayed by my side forever.

When I pulled her to my chest, the weight of her in my arms, it was different. It wasn't the relaxing embrace that I'd grown so accustomed to, with her ear pressed against the heart that she'd always caused to speed up, while I traced light circles on the perfectly smooth skin of her back.

It was desperate.

She was clutching the leather of my jacket with a grip that I'd never felt from her before. The damp remnants of her tears were felt clearly on my shirt but I didn't…couldn't…acknowledge them because then it would make it real and all I wanted was to go back to yesterday.

Yesterday before New York was ripping my heart from my chest.

I remember Rydel came out onto the back porch, seemingly sensing the heartbreak of both her brother and best friend. I just shook my head slowly and she got the message, going back inside.

It was too late. That's what my headshake meant.

We all knew that the foundation was crumbling.

_**We're going down,**_

_**And you can see it too.**_

_**We're going down,**_

_**And you know that we're doomed.**_

_**My dear,**_

_**We're slow dancing in a burning room.**_

After awhile she tried to pull away but I couldn't let go. I always told her I would never let go. I promised.

She struggled against my grip and in my mind I knew that I shouldn't be holding her captive but sometimes my heart took control of my head.

Always when it came to her.

Then three words escaped her mouth. It wasn't the three words I longed for from her. It was three that I had hoped I'd never hear.

Let go, Ross.

And I knew that was it.

_**I was the one you always dreamed of,**_

_**You were the one I tried to draw.**_

_**How dare you say it's nothing to me?**_

_**Baby, you're the only light I ever saw.**_

When I was touring we would stay up all night on the phone. There were countless sunrises peeking over the sprawling greenery that my tour bus sped through, soundtracked by the sweetest sound in the world.

Her voice.

Every song I sang, every song I wrote, had a little piece of her in it. She had always been my muse. The one person that brought my deepest, most sincere thoughts to life. People said I was closed off, or that I seemed like a jerk but she always defended me. He's a hopeless romantic, she'd tell them.

Only for her I was.

Why then was she telling me that I didn't care as much as she did, that our love meant nothing to me.

When she knew it was my everything.

_**I'll make the most of all the sadness,**_

_**You'll be a bitch because you can.**_

_**You try to hit me just to hurt me**_

_**So you leave me feeling dirty**_

_**Because you can't understand.**_

I told her I'd write about it. The song about the girl who broke my heart and that everyone would know it was her.

Everyone thought everything I did was her.

Because it was.

She didn't like the idea of bringing my music into this catastrophe. Before she had turned to run from my yard she'd told me. Said that our relationship had only been a publicity thing for me all along.

She didn't truly mean it.

It was a defense mechanism for her.

I knew that because I knew her.

Everything about her.

Yet she didn't know me. Because if she had, she'd have known that I never wanted any of this.

And that I would have waited for her until my dying breath.

_**We're going down,**_

_**And you can see it too.**_

_**We're going down,**_

_**And you know that we're doomed.**_

_**My dear,**_

_**We're slow dancing in a burning room.**_

Now here I stand in New York. Heart beating a furious rhythm against my chest.

It's cold, as it often is in January. Snow piles around me in majestic, white hills.

Today would've been our anniversary.

I'm across the street from her dorm. Gazing at her from afar while the soft gleam of the falling snow brings back the memories of my angel.

I didn't tell her I was coming.

That may be why her arms are wrapped around someone else.

And her lips too.

And here I stand.

Alone in my burning room.


End file.
